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Scene Title

Does Yer Daddy Drink?

Synopsis

Aigail calls up Flint while in panic to demand he go find Joseph and heal him.

Date

July 31, 2009

Telephone!

Wee hours of the morning. Whether Flint is awake or not, Abigail really doesn't give a flying fuck right now. Calls to 911 done, calls to Ferryman done, the blonde's now dialing someone else. Someone who's helped Joseph before and Joseph has helped him. Feet planted in the dewy grass, moon shining down, Abigails parked in the woods and staring up at the tree's above her while tears track down her cheeks. "Please dear god, answer"

Call it parallel irony, call it restlessness. Deckard's outside as well, seated on the rickety old wood of the Garden stoop next to a half-empty bottle of cold beer and a metallic flip lighter. A little garter snake wound securely through the fingers of one hand, lit and unsmoked cigarette in the other, he sits with his knees braced far apart and his brows knit down after the press of the cigarette ember down into the delicate scale armor laced across the snake's skull. It sizzles, smokes, pops until life is nearly extinguished, then withdraws. Gradually at first, then faster, fresh scales overtake tissue blackened and curled. Smokey eyes clear out again — the tongue flickers out to taste the stench of its own burning.

Then his phone rings.

Distracted annoyance fuzzes into the lines around Deckard's face, but he pushes the cigarette into the corner of his mouth to free up his hand anyway. The receiver is flipped open and pressed to his ear without a glance at the caller ID; the snake struggles ineffectually in his grasp. "Deckard."

"Flint! Praise Jesus. Joseph's hurt" It's nearly yelled into the phone by the blonde on the other end. The blonde who should be in Louisiana right? The moonlight filters through the branches and casts faint shadows here and there. Cicaida's singing in the background with their high whine."Josephs hurt Flint, I called 911 and they're sending folks, already sent folks, I called Ferryman because, because he had someone with him named Charlie" It's a high rate babble that errupts over the line. "But Josephs hurt" She's crying too. God only knows he's heard and seen her do it before.

Woah, Jesus. Deckard grunts, brows slanted into a wince against the blare of her voice directly into his ear even as he lifts his shoulder up to brace it there. All the better to free up his hand for the cigarette again, the corners of his mouth turned down in hazy distaste. For the interruption? For the smoke? Something. He exhales a furl of it anyway, chuffs out a cough and gives the snake a little ground to work its way back through his fingers in the opposite direction. There are cicadas in his neck of the woods too, just. The nearest ones haven't started up again since he went tromping into the brush after the snake. They look on in disapproving silence, trees branches netted black against the grey night overhead. "Hey," is interjected at long last, rough over the sound of her crying across the line. "Slow the fuck down. Is everything okay where you are?"

Ffffff. A last winding wisp of smoke kicks out through Deckard's sinuses and he coughs again, stubbing the hardly-touched cigarette out against the decking at his side with a blunt stab of his right hand. Always something. "If he's just hurt he'll be okay." Probably. There's a note of hesitation that betrays Flint's bafflement over who would want to break the face of Pastor Sumter, then: "You're fine where you are. What else do you know?"

"I'm not fine Flint" A little too loud again, sound echoing through the woods. "My friends are hurt. I saw the news about Pinehearst. I got Liz's text about everyone being alive. I notice she didn't say 'well' or 'healthy' just 'alive'. Now I get a phone call and people needing ferryman help and that Pastor Joseph is bad off and can hear people banging on the door. Don't you tell me that he'll be okay Flint Deckard!"

"Everyone's healthy." Physically. That he knows of. Spent cigarette flicked out into the dust and dirt, Deckard scrubs at the long planes and hollows wrought into his face with a long suffering air that it's probably for the best she can't see. "Including you. Including Joseph, whenever I get around to…prying him away from the cops." Christ. That's going to suck. The snake in his grip is given a tired once over before he tosses it away, scaly length whipping like a giant rubber band on its way to tangling harmlessly in the nearest bush. "You're going to give yourself a fucking heart attack and you're like sixteen."

"I'm twenty and when I do…" She can't finish the sentence. She'd say that she'd just heal herself but.. "You'll be there to say I told you so" Her free hand comes up to wipe at her face, the meat of her palm smudging the tears across her cheeks. "Get Feli…" Nope, don't get Felix to help you. Abigail crouches down, plunging her head between two bent knee's as her world tilts and spins from her panic attack. "Left my fucking pills in the city. I left my fucking pills in the city. I thought I wouldn't need them and then I got that phone call and all I have is my daily ones. God Flint, you have to help him. He doesn't deserve to be hurt"

"Do your parents drink?" There's always room to hide from panic if you think a little outside the box. Her box. There's plenty of booze in his. Both hands dusted off on the flanks of his jeans, he stretches up onto his feet, already squinting after the dark block of his car camped out in the front yard. "I'll call you once I've talked to him. Where is he, Abigail?"

"He was at his house, the caller said he was at his home, and was gonna leave through the fire escape. I sent the emergency folks that way" Do her parents have alcohol? If they did, her dad would surely notice half a bottle gone. "I don't.. I don't know flint. I've never seen them drink" Baptists Flint, remember. Avid, not rabid, god fearing baptists. "Maybe.. he might have some, somewhere, but I don't know"

"Maybe spend some time snooping around while I'm drifting around in Jersey. You sound better." The last remarked offhand, Deckard cranes a look back at the Garden while he tries to remember if there's anything important he's going to leave behind if he boogies on out now.

"I sound better? I have my head wedged between my legs flint and trying not to pass out. Last I need a fucking alligator coming up and biting my head off" There's a pause, a really long pause before a soft "i'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry Flint. You're just trying to help me"

"You sound better," is doubly confirmed convincingly enough. Deckard's not a bad liar, for all that he is bad at a lot of other things. "It's ok. I'll call you when I get there. Turn on the TV, get a drink. I don't know. Don't just sit out there."

"I don't want to wake up my parents" It's a soft whine. "TV will wake them up" But she does it, raising her head, using one hand to push herself back up and he can hear the crunch of fresh grass beneath her feet and snap of branches. She generally does what he tells her to, what anyone tells her to do in moments like this.

"If they disown you, you still have an apartment here in New York." They'll get over it. Chill eyes scraping down after his watch, Deckard's already running numbers when he steps down off the deck to crunch his way over to the el camino. Gabriel kept to his word; There are no scratches, dings or dents that weren't already there.

Maybe. Maybe not. But then again, maybe her father would understand. "Okay"

Funny how she only uses that word with him. "Okay. Just.. just call. after you got him, fixed him. Tell him i'm sorry" Not that she did anything wrong or needed to be sorry for anything. "Okay?"

"Okay." Left arm pried in through the open window to tug at the lock, Flint lets himself in with a sigh to sink down into worn out leather and creaky springs. He bounces once, shuttering the chair down into a marginally more comfortable position before he reaches to close the door after him with a solid thump.

"okay" There's the creak of old wooden steps, and then the groan of chains and wood as she sits down the same time as him on the porch swing. "I'm glad your alive Flint. Thank you, for staying alive"

"Yeah. Sure." What should he say? You're welcome? A deep breath sifts staticy through the dull plastic of the phone and he reaches to poke a screwdriver into the ignition. Right where he left that last, too. "You too."

She hangs up the phone then, closing the pink communication device with a quiet snap. Her head thumping on the back of the wooden swing, staring up at the cobwebbed front porch. Even here, she can't escape New York and it's troubles.

Deckard has to glance at his phone to check that the line is dead once it's been a while before she's said anything. He frowns to himself when he sees it's the case, but. Places to be, pastors to repair. The engine ahead of him rumbles to life and the brake lights flare red to his back. He'll call her when he gets there.